The Boy Scouts of America officially called them the "Ineligible Volunteer Files," confidential documents dating back decades, tracking Scout leaders who had been dismissed from their volunteer jobs.

Unofficially, however, Boy Scouts executives referred to them as the "Perversion Files."

The names tumble down the pages alphabetically — some 5,000 Scout leaders in total, at least 120 of them from New Jersey. Some of them were volunteer supervisors for the Scouts between 1947 and 2005; all were deemed "ineligible" by the Boy Scouts because of allegations for everything from sodomy and aggravated sexual assault to indecency and endangering the welfare of a minor.

The names have been surfacing the past few weeks largely because of the efforts of a Seattle lawyer who has been compiling a vast list of abusive Scoutmasters from lawsuits and court records over the past two decades.

Attorney Timothy Kosnoff calls it "the largest compilation of criminological data of child molestation in a youth organization anywhere."

Today, another set of attorneys in Portland, Ore., are expected to release new details on 1,200 Scoutmasters whom the Boy Scouts of America have kept secret for decades. The release has been ordered by the Oregon Supreme Court.

Wednesday, Kosnoff sent the files of some former New Jersey Scout leaders to The Star-Ledger.

George Diegelman, left, and John A. Deneke.Copy photos/The Star-Ledger

"Sometimes (the Boy Scouts of America) never turned this stuff over to police, even when on its face, it was very serious. Eighty percent of the time they didn’t do that. … My complaint is they (the Boy Scouts) never learned — they stuck their head in the sand and played ostrich and pretended as if this wealth of information that was in the files didn’t matter."

The portrait that emerges of those volunteer leaders deemed "ineligible" by the Scouts is of a motley collection of men, some just out of their teens, others retired; blue-collar and white-collar workers; professionals and tradesmen; the well-to-do and the just-getting-by. What they held in common, the Kosnoff files indicate, was a sexual attraction for underage males.

One name not found on the list is Dennis Pegg, the 68-year-old retired corrections officer from Stillwater who was killed in June. One of the two men charged with stabbing Pegg — Clark Fredericks, 46, of Fredon — told police he had been molested by the older man when he was in Pegg’s Boy Scout troop.

Some Scout leaders when contacted by The Star-Ledger admitted their roles.

Wednesday, John Deneke, 67, of Glen Rock, confirmed he was removed as a Scout leader after being accused of inappropriately touching two young Scouts on a camping trip around 1980. At the time, he pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual contact after fondling the genitals of two boys, ages 11 and 15, according to court documents. Deneke served three years probation and was treated at a sexual behavior clinic in New York. The Bergen County court found that he was not a habitual sex offender and had no prior offenses.

Deneke contended that he didn’t know back then that "a simple touch can be considered sex."

"The facts of this very serious matter do not mandate incarceration," the judge wrote in the Reason for Imposition of Sentence. "Probation is a viable alternative with continued psychotherapy."

In a disturbing parallel to the scandal involving pedophile priests in the Catholic Church, Deneke also said that after he was accused, he was told by the Boy Scouts, "You can go to some other troop."

He also said the Boy Scouts of America failed in its responsibility to train and educate leaders about recognizing and avoiding inappropriate behavior.

Deneke said he wanted to speak to the two victims after his conviction, but his lawyer barred him from reaching out to the families.

"I would have explained the situation and offered my apologies for having done something wrong," Deneke said.

DENIALS CONTINUE

Also on the Kosnoff list is George Diegelman, an Egg Harbor resident and a Scout leader at local Troop 73 for more than 20 years, who admitted in 1995 to performing oral sex on a Boy Scout who was younger than 16 and to giving alcohol and pornographic materials to a second underage Scout.

Diegelman is in his early 60s today. In the mid-1990s, he was indicted and pleaded guilty to sexual assault of one Scout and endangering the welfare of another, according to news accounts of the incident. He was sentenced to eight years in the state Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center for sexual offenders at Avenel.

Reached by phone at his home in Egg Harbor City, Diegelman said he did not want to discuss the 1990s conviction. When asked about other allegations of sexual assaults from the 1980s, which are contained in the Boy Scouts’ confidential files, Diegelman said the charges were false.

NUTLEY CULT CASE

Two of the cases involved accusations against John Sileo, 22, an assistant Cubmaster in the Radcliffe Elementary School in Nutley and an accused cult leader, according to court records, and Michael Abidiwan, 19, an Eagle Scout from Franklin Reformed Church in Nutley.

When the case broke, it grabbed headlines as "a devil-worshipping sex cult involving at least 35 teenagers" in Nutley, according to a Star-Ledger account from Nov. 15, 1983.

Police raided Sileo’s home, finding drugs, alcohol, two handguns, three rifles and sexually explicit material, The Star-Ledger reported at the time. Police also found whips, chains, a dog collar, red and black capes, a rubber mask with horns, a satanic book and a book called "The Mark of Lucifer," according to The Herald-News.

The two men were accused of sexually assaulting four Nutley boys, ages 9 to 15. Authorities said the men used Sileo’s apartment in Nutley, where the boys were "whipped, chained, had wax burned upon their bodies and were forced to act like dogs, wearing collars and lapping milk like dogs," according to the Herald-News.

In June 1984 a grand jury indicted the two men on 14 counts each of endangering the welfare of a child, aggravated sexual assault and making terroristic threats. Sileo was also charged with threatening a girl who witnessed the sexual assaults.

The cult-like activities lasted for two years, authorities said, and were only discovered when parents of the victims found out what happened and reported it.

In 1986, Sileo and Abidiwan pleaded guilty to reduced charges of sexual assault.

Abidiwan was sentenced to five years probation. He has since changed his name to Michael J. Rogers and moved to Ohio. Sileo now lives in Pennsylvania. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, state records show, and faced life in prison, according to news reports at the time. It is unknown how much time he spent behind bars. Neither man responded to calls made to addresses that appear to be current.

LAWSUIT REJECTED

One of the most egregious cases included in the Boy Scouts secret files involved two Scout leaders in Egg Harbor.

James L. Lawlor, who had been an Ocean Township teacher in Monmouth County for more than 20 years and was a leader for America Explorer Post 743, admitted he sexually assaulted a teenage boy while on kayaking and camping trips in late 1987 and 1988. He also told police he had sexually assaulted boys in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Lawlor was 45 when he was charged in 1988 in the case involving the teen. In August 1990, a Monmouth County jury convicted him of two counts of criminal sexual contact and one count of endangering the welfare of a child. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

After the convictions, one of the victims’ mothers tried to sue the Boy Scouts for negligence, but the judge threw out the case.

"Here’s a guy in his mid-40s, never married, living with his mother, taking one or two Scouts out on camping trips (alone)," attorney Vincent Manning said by phone Wednesday. The Freehold lawyer represented the mother and her son. "If that doesn’t raise red flags, then I don’t know what does."

After his arrest in the late 1980s Lawlor told police that he assaulted boys on camping trips to Confluence, Pa., Barryville, N.Y., as well as trips to Bass River, Quail Hill Camp and Stokes Forest in New Jersey.

Manning said his client "would wake up and (Lawlor) would be trying to give him a oral sex."

When he brought the suit in the mid-1990s, the world was a different place, said Manning.

At the time, he believed there was enough evidence about the inappropriateness of Lawlor’s conduct to warrant caution on the part of the Boy Scouts.

Superior Court Judge Michael Farren, now deceased, disagreed and tossed the suit. "In hindsight, great, I was right … whoopee," said Manning, who maintains that the Scouts should have done a better job protecting his client.

Records are unclear about how much, if any, prison time Lawlor served.

His name does not appear on state or national registries of sex offenders. Last year, he died at age 68.

NATIONAL RESPONSE

Wednesday, at Boy Scouts of America national headquarters in Irving, Texas, phone calls about the abuse allegations and the release of the "ineligible volunteer" files were referred to the organization’s public relations department.

Deron Smith, national public relations director for Boy Scouts of America, said the organization began keeping the "IV files" in the 1920s for "one purpose and one purpose only — solely to keep unfit individuals out of Scouting. … They’re a list of people who don’t meet our standards. This is one piece of our youth protection efforts. Back in the 1920s, before criminal background checks, these were essentially the criminal background checks of the time."

The Schiff Nature Preserve in Mendham, where Boy Scouts spent many summers camping and working on the trails.Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger

He said the list has worked: Among the 1,200 files to be released today, he said, there are 175 instances in which people tried to re-enter Scouting, sometimes years later and in a different geographic location, but were prevented because their names were in the files.

Smith said the confidential files coming out today show "a very different time.

"You’re looking at files from the ’60s to the ’80s," he said. "Society’s and individuals’ awareness of sexual abuse and how to respond was very much different. It’s very difficult to understand why action was or wasn’t taken in that time, but today our policies and procedures address those issues."

He said the Boy Scouts of America objected to the documents being publicly released, because "we believe confidentiality encourages prompt reporting of abuse."

"Today we require members to report even suspicion of abuse directly to law enforcement," Smith said, adding the Boy Scouts’ policies and procedures have changed over the years to better protect children from abuse:

"Youth protection requires sustained vigilance," he said. "Our focus today is on making sure that our policies are the gold standard."

Last month, three top executives with the Boy Scouts of America released an open letter to the Scouting community in which they wrote, "For any episode of abuse, and in any instance where those involved in Scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest apologies and sympathies to victims and their families."

At least one former Scout was not mollified. In an online publication, California’s Matt Stewart, who settled a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America in 2007, wrote last month: "The apology is not accepted. … The Boy Scouts covered up these cases. How can you put an ‘I’m sorry’ behind that?"